Just a quick recommendation. Today, I received my copy of _The Viking World_ by James Graham-Campbell. It had been recommended by a Regia friend in a post on a totally different subject, and I took a look at Amazon, where there were smple pages. It looked very nice and cost less than twenty bucks. The photos did not give it proper service. The book is crammed with beautiful and colorful photos and line illustrations. Pretty neat. Go to
http://www.amazon.com/Viking-World-James-Graham-Campbell/dp/0711218005/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258161666&sr=8-1 and take a look at the page samples (and remember that the actual pages are much more colorful).